HUGHTON PRAISES FANS' BACKING

21 February 2015

James Hilsum

“What they will do is get behind the team and the club as a whole; they’re very good supporters and I must admit in the games that I’ve been involved in at home so far, I can’t fault how they’ve been and are very fair with the team. But what you want to do is get them up off their seats and you can only do that by playing winning football.”

He said, “We have a responsibility as a team. You cannot expect to turn around and see the crowd cheering if you’re not giving them something to get behind the team for.

The Seagulls have kept back-to-back clean sheets away at Cardiff City and Sheffield Wednesday, but Hughton feels his players now need to produce some entertaining displays as a reward to the fans for their unwavering support through the season.
Brighton & Hove Albion boss Chris Hughton has praised the backing the fans have given the team this season and says it is up to the team to entertain them by putting in exciting performances on the pitch.

After two consecutive clean sheets on the road, Hughton now says the focus has to be creating chances at the other end of the pitch.

“When I think about strikers I think about service; you speak to any strikers and you’ll ask them to give you a work rate and defend from the front, but mostly what they want is service and opportunities to score.

“The last couple of games have been tight. They were two away games and particularly in the last game at Sheffield Wednesday, we were having to deal with a difficult pitch as well, but the centre forwards want to score goals and get opportunities.

“What they can do is maneuver and get some of those opportunities themselves, but generally they’re relying on good service and we need to do that. We are very conscious of the fact we need to score more goals and we’ve been working on the training pitch to try and do that.”

Finally, Hughton feels there is little to separate Albion from the teams occupying the higher places in the table - having seen what it takes to compete at the top end during his time with Newcastle United and Saturday's opponents Birmingham.

“I actually don’t think we're that far away from being a team in the top ten; we’re in a division where our points total says otherwise, but the type of team we are and the quality we have compared to a side that’s seven or eight places above us isn’t very different.

“If you’re a team that’s in a far more comfortable position, you have that reassurance going into most games. Of course when you’re not there, then you’re going into games looking for different qualities in the players; they have to be resolute, confident and they can’t have any fear.

"They can’t fear where we are in the division and what might happen if they don’t get a result; that’s when you are looking very much at the character of the players.”